Tag Archives: Gresham

New Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets, Horn Stairs and a Confusion of Greshams

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One of the challenges with the blog is that there are many updates I would like to add to previous posts. If I update the original post, then the update will be part of a post that could be from several years ago, so not very visible, therefore for this week’s post, I thought I would cover three very different updates to past posts.

The last two are based on feedback from readers, which is always greatly appreciated. The first is following a recent decision by the City of London Corporation, regarding:

The future of Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets

The City of London Corporation has been looking at relocating the Smithfield and Billingsgate markets for some years.

Smithfield Market is set to become a new cultural and commercial centre, with the new Museum of London already under construction in the old General and Poultry market buildings.

Billingsgate Market moved out of Billingsgate in 1982, when the fish and seafood market moved to a new location by the North Dock, between the northern edge of the Isle of Dogs, and the A1261 Aspen Way.

Originally, the City of London Corporation were planning to relocate both markets to Dagenham Dock, a location that was not popular with the market traders, and in November 2024, the City of London Corporation abandoned this move, and appeared to take an approach where traders would be helped to move to other locations, without having a single location available.

At the start of December 2025, the City of London Corporation announced a new policy, that the two markets would be consolidated and moved to a new location at Albert Island at the eastern end of the Royal Docks.

In the following map, the green arrow on the left shows the location of Smithfield market, the centre yellow arrow shows where Billingsgate Market is located today, and the red arrow on the right shows the future consolidated location of both markets, between the eastern end of the Royal Docks and the River Thames (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

In the following map, I have put a red line around Albert Island, the land which is planned to be used for the new markets (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

The land is currently derelict, with the majority of the buildings that once occupied the site having already been demolished.

At northern and southern ends, the land is bounded by two of the old locked entrances between the Royal Docks (a small part of which can be seen to the left), and the River Thames, on the right.

On the left centre of the map is the eastern end of the runway of London City Airport.

The following image is taken from the book that was issued to commemorate the opening of the King George V Dock in 1921. This new dock had not yet been officially opened by the King, so could only use his name once he had declared the dock open, which is why it is labelled as the New Dock in the image.

I have outlined in red the area of Albert Island as it was, following completion of the King George V Dock, the final dock of the three “Royals”:

As the plot of land is bounded on all sides by water, and the Royal Albert Dock is to the west, the plot of land goes by the name of Albert Island.

This location for the consolidated markets is a rather inspired choice.

It is a challenging location. Being at the end of the runway for London City Airport means that you could not build residential buildings. Even if these were built, they would have to be low rise, and would have the sound of planes either landing or taking off a short distance overhead.

The location is well connected from a transport perspective. In the above map, there is a road crossing towards the left of the plot. Follow this road north, and it connects to the A13, and south to the Woolwich Ferry, and further west to the new Silvertown tunnel.

The land has been derelict for some years, whilst the land around the rest of the Royal Docks has been gradually redeveloped.

Relocating the market here, will also bring a different activity to this part of east London, and will break up the rows of residential towers which have and continue to be built here, particularly along the land to the south, between the Royal Docks and the Thames.

I explored the area back in 2024 in a number of posts on the Royal Docks and surrounding areas. If you have been on my walk “In the Steps of a Woolwich Docker – From the Woolwich Ferry to the Royals”, you will also recognise Albert Island.

Firstly, this is why the site would not be suitable for residential. This photo was taken from the road that runs over Albert Island and shows that the land is at the eastern end of the London City Airport runway:

Starting from the north, this is a walk along the road over Albert Island showing how the area looks today. In the following photo, the end of residential development to the north can be seen, as well as the old locked entrances between the dock and the river. The start of Albert Island is the undeveloped land to the right of the residential:

The original eastern entrances between the Thames and the Royal Albert Dock:

Heading south and this is the central part of Albert Island. The majority of buildings associated with the docks were demolished some years ago, leaving the outline of walls, paths, streets and the concrete floors of long lost warehouses and industrial buildings:

There are still a few old streets that thread across the site, generally bounded by large growths of vegetation:

The main entrance from the road that crosses the site to Albert Island:

At the southern end of Albert Island is the locked entrance between the Thames and the King George V dock. This photo is looking at the northern side of the lock channel, which will become part of the new market site:

Also back in 2024, I had a walk around Albert Island. This is one of the old streets that thread the site, along with the one remaining warehouse building on the left:

Some of the few roads across the site were fenced off:

The only route across the island back in 2024 was a footpath that ran alongside the Thames, at the eastern edge of Albert Island. This is the footpath heading towards the Thames:

At the corner:

In the following photo, on the left is the Thames, on the right is Albert Island. It was a hot day when I went for this walk, and my main memory of this stretch is the hundreds of butterflies that were in the bushes on the right. As you walked along the footpath, they would rise out of the bushes, before settling back after I had passed – it was a rather magical place, also with the Thames on the left:

At the end of the footpath, steps up to a short path that went up to the locked entrance to the King George V dock:

Crossing the lock, and looking back towards the King George V dock. This channel marks the southern boundary of Albert Island, and the new market area which will be on the right:

The above photos were taken back in 2024, last year, 2025, I went on another walk through the area whilst I was planning my Woolwich to Royal Docks walk. I had intended to walk through Albert Island, however this proved impossible, as the crossing over the locked entrance between the Thames and King George V dock was then closed, and there was no clear route through.

I did try some options, but every route ended in fencing, or some other obstruction.

In the following photo, I had just walked along the footpath shown to the left of the photo, and optimistically found this sign for a footpath:

I followed this apparent footpath, and it ended in a waterlogged channel with no way through:

The relocation of the two markets is subject to the passing of a Parliamentary Bill to allow the old markets to be closed at their current sites, along with planning permission from Newham Borough Council for the Albert Island site, and I suspect neither of these will be a problem.

The 3rd of December press release stated that the markets “will continue at Smithfield and Billingsgate until at least 2028”, and I suspect that clearing the current site, any remedial work that needs to be done on what was an industrial location, followed by the new build, will take more than a couple of years, so the “at least 2028” suggests the possible timescale.

When the two markets have moved to Albert Island, they will be called “New Billingsgate and New Smithfield”, although for Billingsgate this is the second move after the original 1982 move from the original Billingsgate in the City.

Regarding the existing market locations, an updated press release on the 2nd of January 2026 states that “at Smithfield, the Grade II* listed buildings will become an exciting international cultural and commercial destination to complement the London Museum, which is moving next door”, and that “Plans for Billingsgate will deliver up to 4,000 much-needed homes in an inner-London Borough, alongside a new bridge across Aspen Way to help address the social, economic and environmental disparities between Poplar and Canary Wharf.”

It is a shame that Smithfield is moving from its City location as it was the last City market in its original location, and ends an activity that has taken place in the City for hundreds of years.

Having said that, the new location is good. It makes use of an otherwise difficult to use plot of land, it brings diversity of function and employment to the area around the Royal Docks, and in many ways it continues the tradition of the Royal Docks, as a place where products were stored, traded and moved on to their eventual location.

Albert Island has a website, which does not yet mention the move of the Smithfield and Billingsgate markets, and still covers the original proposals for a commercial shipyard, marina, university hub, and with easy public access to the Thames river path. Hopefully some of these will be part of the overall development. Bringing a shipyard back to the docks would be good, and access to the Thames river path would be essential. The Albert Island website can be found here.

The City of London Corporation announcement on the move of the markets to Albert Island is here.

If you would like more photos of the area, and the construction and opening of the King George V Dock, my post “King George V Dock – The Last of the Royals” covering this can be found here.

It will be an interesting development to follow.

Horn Stairs

Horn Stairs are one of my favourite Thames stairs, as they lead down to a lovely part of the Thames foreshore. At low tide, a wide expanse of gently slopping foreshore, with superb view across to Limehouse and the northern part of the Isle of Dogs.

My last visit to Horn Stairs was in mid January 2024, and almost two years later, I walked to the stairs again following an update on the state of the stairs sent in by a reader.

The reader commented that the stairs had been closed as they had lost a couple of their top steps, had come away from the wall, and moved back and forth significantly with the tide.

They were in a poor condition when I visited two years ago, with rotting wooden steps, and their fixing to the wall not looking very robust, so I am surprised they have lasted for almost another two years.

When I went in January 2024, it was a bright, sunny day. My return visit in January 2026 was wet, overcast and raining.

On arriving at Horn Stairs, there was a footpath closed sign, and temporary fencing at the top of the access steps, which looked like it had been moved, or blown aside:

Very temporary fencing off of the stairs:

I walked through a gap and looked at the stairs and the remains of the causeway leading across the foreshore:

It was clear to see that the top steps are missing, the top section of steps do not look in great condition, and the fixings at the side have come away:

This was the stairs back in 2024, looking very dodgy, but not fenced off and it was possible to walk down:

Horn Stairs, and the area of foreshore to which they lead, has a fascinating history, which I explored in the post “Horn Stairs, Cuckold’s Point and Horn Fair”.

Some photos from my previous visit, when the weather was much better than January 2026. Firstly looking along the causeway across the foreshore:

At the end of the causeway is a navigation marker, shown on the PLA chart for this section of the river, with a wonderful view across to the towers that occupy the Isle of Dogs:

Looking back along the causeway, showing that during a low tide, there is a large expanse of dry foreshore:

Wooden stairs do not last as long as concrete or stone stairs, and there are a number of examples along the river where wooden stairs have not been replaced after they gradually fell apart (see this post on King Henry’s Stairs for an example). I am also not sure why some are concrete / stone whilst other are of wood. Whether the frequency of use, their importance or location along the river deemed some to be of a more permanent structure, or whether it just came to costs at the time.

I have emailed both the Port of London Authority and Southwark Council to see if there is any information on who would be responsible, are there any plans to replace the stairs etc.

It would be a great shame if the stairs at Horn Stairs were not replaced.

Sir John or Sir Thomas Gresham – The Trouble with Identifications

A couple of week’s ago, I wrote a post about the Greshams of Norfolk and London.

The post told the story of Sir John Gresham, the founder of a school in the town of Holt in Norfolk, a member of the Mercer’s Company and a Lord Mayor of the City of London, along with his nephew Sir Thomas Gresham who was also a Mercer and through his Will, in 1597, Gresham College was established, to be run and administered by the City of London Corporation and the Mercer’s Company.

I included images of both Sir John and Sir Thomas Gresham in the post.

One reader commented “A very interesting post. The picture of ‘Sir John Gresham’ and the engraving of ‘Sir Thomas Gresham’ are identical: the engraving is laterally reversed because of the engraving technique, but otherwise the images are the same, even down to the number of done-up buttons and the hand holding the gloves. It’s the same man! Either the attribution of the painting is wrong or that of the engraving – probably the latter, I think.”

So I went back to the images and yes, they do look as if they are of the same person.

This is the image of Sir John Gresham:

I found the above image on Wikimedia, with the description “Portrait of Sir John Gresham (1495–1556)”.

As a general rule, I never take anything on Wikipedia / Wikimedia (or the Internet in general) as absolute fact, without finding supporting evidence, and in the search for evidence to support the Wikimedia description, I found the same image in the National Trust Collections website, where it is attributed as “Portrait of a Man, possibly Sir John Gresham the elder” I also found the same image at the Alamy website, (a stock image service company, where images are made available for a price, for use in other forms of media) where the image is described as “Sir John Gresham (1495 – 1556) English merchant, courtier and financier”.

So the image I found on Wikimedia was also described by the National Trust and Alamy as Sir John Gresham (in fairness to the National Trust they also included “possibly”), so I was happy to use the image from Wikimedia.

The following image of his nephew, Sir Thomas Gresham, is from the British Museum collection, and was an engraving by John Boydell of Cheapside, London and published on the 1st of May, 1779, and is described as being taken from “In the Common Parlour at Houghton”, which is presumably Houghton Hall in Norfolk, a county where the Gresham’s had property, hence the link with the town of Holt in my post:

To provide a good comparison between the two images, I converted the image of Sir John Gresham to black and white, and reversed the image (the reader commented that the image could have been originally reversed due to the engraving technique, therefore reversing again would get the image back to the original).

Now putting the two images side by side, we get the following (Thomas Gresham on the left and John Gresham on the right):

They look almost identical, down to the creases on the clothing, the number of buttons, the pose, the clothes, etc.

There are minor differences, however I suspect that these are down to the engraving (on the left) being made from the portrait (on the right).

I assume the process to create prints such as these, which were in wide circulation in London in the 18th century, was that an artist would visit Houghton Hall and make a copy of the original painting. As this was a copy, there would be minor differences to the original painting.

This copy was then used to create the engraving which John Boydell then published from his premises in Cheapside.

So is the image of Sir John or Sir Thomas Gresham?

I suspect it is of Sir Thomas Gresham, as the following image is from the National Portrait Gallery collection, and has the following reference: “Sir Thomas Gresham by Unknown Netherlandish artist
oil on panel, circa 1565″:

Attribution: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. Source National Portrait Gallery, London

Although the clothes are very different, the likeness, facial expression, the beard all look very similar to the painting and print.

This would mean that the National Trust is incorrect to state that their painting is Sir John Gresham, although again, they do state “possibly”.

To add a bit more confusion, in the print of Sir Thomas Gresham from the British Museum, the “size of the picture” is stated as 2ft, 1inch by 2ft 9 3/4 inches. whilst the National Trust give the dimensions of the painting of Sir John Gresham as 36 x 26 in, and that the painting is located at Dunham Massey in Cheshire.

So the painting is larger than that given in the print, and today is in a different location.

This confusion of Gresham’s shows just how hard it is to be certain of the facts when identifying anything painted, engraved or printed from some centuries ago. If I had the time, I would want to track down more original artwork of both the Greshams and see if this could come to a consensus of appearance of these two, whose contributions to the City of London can still be seen today.

I always try and make sure that the images used, and the detail in my posts is as accurate as possible. I use visits to the sites I am writing about, books and maps (of an age as close to the time I am writing about the better), newspapers from the period, and where I use the Internet, it is from reputable sources such as the British Museum Collection, and anything else is cross checked with other sources.

As the Gresham images show, it is hard enough to be sure of the facts of what we see, whether an image is of who we are told it is, but AI, which always seems to be in the news these days, is going to make this much, much worse.

I will never use any AI generated content in my posts, whether text or image, and to demonstrate why, I asked ChatGPT to generate an image of Sir Thomas Gresham, and this was the result (ChatGPT made the decision to produce a portrait “in velvet” for some reason):

The above image shows the dangers of where we are heading with AI image creation. Without any context, this could easily be taken as a painting of Sir Thomas Gresham. It took less than a minute to create, and is why we are moving into a dangerous period where we have no idea whether what we see or read is real or not.

And for all the comments that my posts receive, two of which were used for today’s post, thank you. I learn much, and they add considerably extra context and information to the post, which is what it should be, rather than machine generated content.

The Greshams of Norfolk and London

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Almost 12 years ago, the blog started as a means of recording then and now photos based on my father’s photos, but since 2014 it has also been a way for me to explore London and the city’s history (or rather take more interest in what I used to walk past, and I still have lots more of my father’s photos to post about).

As well as taking more notice whilst walking London, it is also fascinating to find connections between the city and the wider country, and one of these connections is the subject of this week’s post.

A couple of week’s ago, we were in the small town of Holt in north Norfolk (thanks to A & C for the suggestion and company). and at the western end of the Market Place, there was a building which had a very familiar symbol for the institution that occupies the building:

The building is the home of Gresham’s Nursery and Pre Prep School, and further west there is a much larger part of Gresham’s School, and what initially caught my attention was the image of the grasshopper, which is on the sign board and also on one of the school busses that went through the centre of the town:

The name Gresham is a key part of London history, and the grasshopper is the crest above the Gresham family coast of arms.

The Gresham grasshopper can also be found in a central part of the City of London. The following photo is of the Bank junction with the Royal Exchange in the centre of the photo:

Not easily visible in the above photo, but on the weather vane of the small tower on the roof of the Royal Exchange is another Gresham grasshopper:

So why does the name Gresham, and the symbol of a grasshopper appear both in Holt and in the centre of the City of London?

Firstly, Holt is in the far north of the county of Norfolk, not far from the North Sea coast, and surrounded by agricultural land. The following map shows the location of the town of Holt (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

The Gresham family had long held land in this part of Norfolk, having descended from Ralph de Braunche who fought with, and came over during William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066.

He was granted land in Norfolk (as part of a great transfer of land ownership from the earlier pre-conquest Saxon land owners, to those who had supported William during and after 1066), and at some point in the following years, the family took the Gresham surname from the village in north Norfolk where the family were land owners, and near where they had settled in the 14th century.

In the following map, I have ringed Holt in blue to the left, and the village of Gresham in red, to the right (© OpenStreetMap contributors):

We did not get a chance to visit the village of Gresham, however Geograph has an image of the village name sign, which also has a Gresham grasshopper:

© Copyright Humphrey Bolton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Image source: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1051802

In the early 15th century, members of the family had settled in Holt, and had built a Manor House at the eastern end of Market Place, on the site of the current Pre Prep School shown in the photo at the start of the post, and it was in this Manor House that Sir John Gresham was born, at some point around the year 1496.

His father was also a John Gresham, and as well as Holt, he was also involved with business in London, an involvement which would grow considerably in the following years.

Sir John Gresham had been apprenticed to John Middleton, a textile dealer in the City of London when he was 14, and when he was 21, he became a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.

He became heavily involved with the Tudor Court of Henry VIII and helped Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell with trade, and his provision of finance, arms and men in support of Henry VIII’s military ambitions helped build his popularity with the King.

He was also Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1547.

Returning to Holt, it was Sir John Gresham that founded the school which still exists to this day, and the need for a school appears to have been due to a gap in local education left by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.

In the early 16th century, much formal education was provided by religious establishments, and Sir John Gresham had attended the school at Beeston Regis Priory. This school was closed in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and there was no other option to replace the Priory.

The first school was in the family manor house which had been extended specifically for the purpose, and Letters Patent from Queen Mary in 1555 provided royal approval for the school.

He would not though live to see the formal opening of the school as he died in his London home on the 23rd of October 1556, a short time before the school opened.

He was buried in St. Michael’s Bassishaw, a parish church in Basinghall Street, however the grave, monument and church were destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Sir John Gresham, founder of the school in Holt, member of the Mercer’s Company, Lord Mayor of the City of London:

Attribution: Flemish school, artist unknown., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Whilst Sir John Gresham is mainly remembered in the town of Holt as the founder of Gresham’s school, it is his nephew, Sir Thomas Gresham who left a mark on London that is still very much in evidence today.

Sir John Gresham’s brother was Sir Richard Gresham.

He seems to have followed a very similar career path to his brother John as he was a member of the Mercer’s Company, Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1537, involved in the Court of Henry VIII, and a significant trader in goods with the Low Countries, the area of Europe now mainly occupied by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

He also provided goods for the King, and Richard amassed a significant fortune as a result of his trading activities.

Richard had four children, one of whom was the future Sir Thomas Gresham, and is believed to have been born in 1519 in Richard’s house in Milk Street in the City of London.

Sir Thomas Gresham was also a Mercer and had been apprenticed to his uncle Sir John Gresham. He would go on to amass far more wealth than his father or uncle, engaged in trade throughout London and Europe, and in many ways he was one of the original driving forces in establishing the City of London as one of the major financial and trading centres in the world.

He would serve three different monarchs – Edward VI, Mary I and then Elizabeth I, and what is intriguing was the apparent ease of transition between different monarchs as he seamlessly went from the staunchly Catholic Mary I to the Protestant Elizabeth I.

As well as a house in the City of London, he also spent considerable periods of time over a period of around 30 years, living in the city of Antwerp, then the major trading hub of Europe, and a city which had a Bourse, a place where a trading and credit market would operate, and where traders in both goods and finance would meet to agree loans, make foreign exchange trades, trade goods etc. all the different types of trading activity that would soon make London the main trading hub of the world.

Gresham seems to have had a remarkable memory and ability to calculate trades, and would make money on the small differences between currencies, borrowing and lending rates etc. He also attempted to influence rates, for example by providing friendly merchants with amounts of money so that they could make a trade which would raise or lower the value of the currency being traded, just in advance of when Gresham had to make a trade.

The earlier trade changing the rate at which his later trade would take place in a way that was beneficial to Gresham, was indicative of how Gresham would try and manipulate markets to his own advantage.

He was apparently extremely self confident to the point of arrogance, and would do everything needed to get a good outcome from a trade, a loan or borrowings. An example of his approach to raising capital is through his marriage in 1544 to an apparently wealthy widow, Anne Ferneley, whose husband, a wealthy merchant had died at a young age.

Thomas Gresham:

(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.):

His time in Antwerp was not all about trade. He became fluent in multiple European languages, experienced the impact and benefits of the renaissance, and saw the benefits that a formal education had to commercial trade. He built up an extensive network of informants across Europe, and he also understood the importance that having a Bourse would be to the trading life of a city. All themes that would later influence his plans for the City of London.

Sir Thomas Gresham, painted by an Unknown Netherlandish artist, circa 1565:

Attribution: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. Source National Portrait Gallery, London

Gresham was involved in so many financial innovations, from ways to improve personal accounting through to how the country’s finances were managed and initiatives to improve the global standing of England’s currency.

One example of the later, was with the strength of Sterling.

Today, the value of the UK’s currency is more dependent on measures such as interest rates, trade deficits, GDP etc. however in the 16th century, the value of the currency was linked to the metal in which the coin was minted, and much of England’s coinage was viewed as “debased” – meaning that the face value of the coin was more than the value of the metal in which it was minted.

A common cause of debasing a coin was through clipping, where small pieces of a coin around the edge, were clipped off. Doing this to a sufficient number of coins provided a large amount of valuable metal, however the value of the metal of the clipped coins was now less than their face value.

When using coins for trade, such as to purchase goods for import, continental traders were not happy to accept English coins without weighing and testing their metal content, to ensure they were getting the value of payment expected. This took time, and reduced the value of English coinage to foreign traders.

Initiatives had been tried to recall all the coinage in circulation with little success, and during Elizabeth I’s reign, Gresham was the brains behind the plans for Secretary of State William Cecil to recall and remint the currency in circulation, as a way of restoring the correct value to the country’s coinage.

The concept of debased coinage replacing coinage that aligned with face value was later framed as Gresham’s Law – “Bad money drives out good”, although the issue around debased coinage, and its impact on coinage as a method of trade, store of value etc. had been known for many years before Gresham.

Thomas Gresham was also a champion of double-entry book keeping and he appears to have been one of the first to have used and introduced the technique into England.

Double-entry is where separate entries are written using two accounts for credits and debits, and was a method that Gresham encountered during his time in Antwerp. The technique was used considerably by European merchants, and appears to have originated with Italian merchants.

Gresham’s double entry journal covering the period from the 26th of April 1546 to the 10th of July 1552 has survived and shows how meticulous Gresham was in using this accounting method for his own, personal finances.

The period covers part of his time as a trader in Antwerp, when he was bringing in goods from England to trade and sell, as well as goods he purchased in Antwerp to sell in England.

Gresham called the profit and loss account in his ledger his account of “damage and gain”, which is a rather good way of describing losses and profits.

Another print of Thomas Gresham, and what I like about this print is the ship to his right. Paintings, prints etc. would often include things that were important of representative of the person portrayed. The print may be symbolic of Gresham’s interest and influence in global trade and commerce. The print also records his founding of Gresham College:

(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.):

It is impossible to overstate Gresham’s importance to the financial health of the country, the rapidly growing importance of the City of London as a financial and trading centre, free trade, trading and accounting techniques etc. But there were many other ways in which Thomas Gresham had a considerable impact on the future of the City of London. One of which is still very active and follows its founding principles, the second is still physically here, but no longer has the purpose that Gresham intended. This is:

The Royal Exchange

In the 16th century, trading in the City of London was carried out on the street, or in the small houses and shops that lined streets such as Cornhill and Lombard Street, and there had been calls for a dedicated place where people could meet to trade, agree prices, and generally conduct business of all types.

Sir Richard Gresham first became aware of the opening of a Bourse, or trading centre in Antwerp, one of the major trading centres of Europe. Sir Richard pushed for such a building to be constructed in the City of London, however despite the project receiving royal support, there was no suitable space available.

The proposal was taken up by his son, Sir Thomas Gresham, who was also very well aware of the Bourse from his many years in Antwerp, where he worked on behalf of the Crown, as well as trading on his own account.

Gresham put his own money into the project, along with significant funding generated through public subscriptions, and which supported the purchase of a block of land in Cornhill Street, a short distance from what is now the Bank junction, and occupying the same site as the current Royal Exchange.

The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth I in January 1570, and it was the first, large, Renaissance style building in the City. Gresham had intended that the new Exchange was named after him, however at the opening, Elizabeth I gave it the name Royal Exchange, and Gresham obviously had to retain the Queen’s favour, so the Exchange retained the name Royal.

Sir Thomas Gresham’s Royal Exchange:

(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.):

On top of the tower in the above print is a grasshopper, as still to be seen on the current Royal Exchange, and at Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk. The following is an enlargement of the grasshopper from the above print:

The purpose of the Royal Exchange was to provide a place where trades could be carried out, where people could meet, offices could be rented etc. and followed the approach Gresham had seen in the Antwerp Bourse.

Providing a central place for face to face trading was more efficient than being distributed across the city, and the opening of such an impressive Exchange greatly enhanced the City of London’s growing reputation for trade, commerce and finance.

This first Royal Exchange was destroyed during the 1666 Great Fire, and was soon rebuilt following a design by Edward Jarman.

The second Royal Exchange, from a print of the late 17th / early 18th centuries, again with a grasshopper on the top of the tower:

(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.):

This second iteration of the Royal Exchange lasted until 1838, when, as with the first, it was also burnt down.

The Royal Exchange was soon rebuilt, following a competition to find a design. The competition was won by the architect William Tite, who seems to have also been one of the judges of the competition.

Tite’s design follows the layout of the original two Exchanges, with a central courtyard surrounded by four wings of offices and shops, however Tite’s design changed the main entrance from facing onto Cornhill, now to face onto the Bank junction.

The buildings that had once occupied the triangular space in front of the Exchange were demolished, and it was opened up so that the full Corinthian portico of the new building faced directly onto the Bank junction, and seems almost to mirror the Mansion House across the junction.

The new Royal Exchange was opened in 1844 by Queen Victoria, and this is the building that we still see today, and which retains the grasshopper shown in the photo earlier in the post.

The use of the Royal Exchange as a place for general, face to face trading and commerce faded in the late 19th century as specialist trading exchanges were set up to provide a place where trades could be made, meetings held, and news received in a specific and related set of commodities or services.

In 1939, the building became the offices of the Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Company, and in the late 1980s, the company made substantial changes to the interior of the building, which included replacing the original roof, and an additional upper floor.

In 2001, the building was again refurbished, and reopened as a centre for luxury shops, restaurants and bars, and the Royal Exchange retains this function today.

Although Sir Thomas Gresham was instrumental in the founding and construction of the Royal Exchange. it never carried his name, just the Gresham family’s grasshopper symbol as a weathervane. His name though has been, and still is, recorded in a number of London places, including the 1845 Gresham Street, which was a rebuilding of earlier streets Lad Lane and Cateaton Street.

Gresham’s name is also still in use with a significant London educational institution, in which Gresham was again instrumental in founding. This is:

Gresham College

In Antwerp, Sir Thomas Gresham experienced the way that an education in trade, scientific and technical developments would benefit the commercial life of a country to such an extent that through his Will, in 1597, Gresham College was established, to be run and administered by the City of London Corporation and the Mercer’s Company.

Gresham College was an attempt by Gresham to provide an education to those of the City, traders, merchants and mariners, who had not had a formal education.

The college provided free lecturers that were delivered by Professors appointed by the City of London Corporation and the Mercer’s Company.

The Mercers appointed professors in Law, Physic and Rhetoric, whilst the City of London appointed professors in Divinity, Astronomy, Geometry and Music.

Until 1768, the College was based a Sir Thomas Gresham’s former home at Bishopsgate. When the site was redeveloped, it moved to the Royal Exchange, and then to a new, dedicated building on the corner of Gresham Street and Basinghall Street, the college later held lectures at a number of different locations, ending up at Mercers Hall, before finally moving to the current location of Barnard’s Inn Hall  in 1991.

Remarkably, given that Gresham College is over 400 years old, the approach is basically the same as when the college first started.

Professors are appointed for a three year term and each professor, along with visiting professors, will provide free lectures during their term.

Lectures can be attended in person, or watched online. Many of the past lectures are also available to watch online.

Lectures cover an extremely varied range of subjects, ranging from “How It Ends: What We Know about the Fate of the Universe” by Professor Chris Lintott, who is Gresham Professor of Astronomy:

through to “Modern Pagan Witchcraft” by Professor Ronald Hutton, the Gresham Professor of Divinity:

A could be expected, there is also a very large archive of lectures on London’s history, as well as lectures on Sir Thomas Gresham.

The website of Gresham College can be found by clicking here.

The Watch Now option along the top of the page takes you to a page where a sample of lectures are listed, as well as a topic list along the top of the page.

There is also a search option, and as an example, entering the term “London” brings up a large list of London related lectures.

The last lecture of 2025 is this Wednesday, the 17th of December, and is on the subject of a Tudor Christmas. You can book to attend in person, or to watch the lecture live online.

If you have finished reading all the back issues of London Archaeology mentioned in last week’s post, then the lecture archive of Gresham College provides another wonderful source of learning on not just London, but so many other different aspects of the wider world.

It is a wonderful resource, all thanks to Sir Thomas Gresham.

Returning to Holt, and as you walk back west along Market Place from the site of Gresham’s old manor house, and at the end of High Street, there is a wonderful Grade II listed, mid-18th century milestone:

I wondered if London was listed on the milestone, however all the miles and destinations were to local towns and villages, with the furthest being 41 miles away:

An indication of how relatively remote Holt was at the time, and a long way from any direct roads to London, with a trip to Norwich probably being required to pick up the main road to London.

The Gresham’s were a fascinating family. Whilst Sir John Gresham was active in London, and a Lord Mayor of the City of London, his lasting monument is Gresham School in Holt.

It was his nephew Sir Thomas Gresham who left a lasting reminder of his life in London, apparently one of the richest and most well connected men in England at the time.

If you would like to follow up on the story of Sir Thomas Gresham, there are some lectures on his life in the collection at Gresham College, and the book Gresham’s Law by John Guy (who also presents some of the lectures), is excellent:

In the game of who from history you would invite to a dinner party, Gresham would be high up on my list, although by the end he would probably have left with a large profit after selling me some wool and providing a loan – all at rates beneficial to Gresham.